The Levels Of Carbon Dioxide

According to Ocean Portal, “in the past 200 years alone, ocean water has become 30 percent more acidic”. The rapid growth of acidity within the oceans is dramatically impacting ecosystems- even the shells of animals are disintegrating in the acid contaminated seawater.

Over the years Carbon Dioxide has been significantly increasing from human activity. CO2 has a concentration of about 400 ppmv (parts per million volume). Its concentration in the atmosphere was about 280 ppmv before the Industrial Revolution, now it has increased immensely to about 380 ppmv in 2006. Many have said Carbon Dioxide has been the main reason or cause of global warming; saying that if we produce too much of this greenhouse gas it can create a global climate change. Even though carbon dioxide affects the temperature of the atmosphere it also affects the acidity of water specifically in the ocean.

The ocean is a very delicate ecosystem in which the slightest change of pH or chemical composition will result in devastating results. Between 25 and 40% of anthropogenic carbon emissions have entered the marine area since the industrial age (Sabine et

G., Cong-Qiang, L., WeiDong, Z., Minella, M., Vione, D., Kunshan, G., & ... Hiroshi, S. (2016). Reviews and Syntheses: Ocean acidification and its potential impacts on marine ecosystems. Biogeosciences, 13(6), 1767. doi:10.5194/bg-13-1767-2016

Changes in CO2 are affecting us and our environment in many ways. the most predominant effect of carbon dioxide changes is on the weather and oceans. Unpredictable heat waves are occurring in unforeseen parts of the world (i.e. Europe) and global temperatures as a whole are rising. The rise in the temperatures can not only affect us but the flora and fauna around us. With hotter temperatures, some plants and animals may be unable to adjust which would result in a chain reaction. Heat is affecting the oceans as well and many long standing glaciers or ice shelves to melt and alter the oceans temperature, levels and salinity. These, resultantly, are causing disruptions to the thermohaline conveyor and are effecting islands or seaside town as the water level

Since the beginning of the industrial revolution, mankind has slowly increased the total greenhouse gas emissions that enter the atmosphere. Over time, this pollution began to add up. Now planet Earth is struggling to maintain its health with the combined forces of global warming and ocean acidification looking to bring demise. From all portions of the world, troubling changes are emerging in the chemistry of our oceans’ waters. The oceans takes in around a quarter of the Carbon Dioxide that mankind releases into the atmosphere every year, so as atmospheric Carbon Dioxide levels rise, so do the

Carbon Capture and Sequestration is the process of reducing emissions of carbon dioxide by injecting the compound back in the ground. The process takes 3 steps:

Ocean acidification is becoming on of the most concerning subjects compared to global climate change. pH is the level of acidity, seven being neutral fourteen being most basic and zero being most acidic. The pH levels in the ocean are dropping and becoming more acidic. This is happening because of increasing carbon dioxide emissions. The ocean is taking in the carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

“How acidification threatens ocean from the inside out: Carbon dioxide emissions are making the oceans more acidic, imperiling the growth and reproduction of species from plankton to squid”, by Marah J. Hardt and Carl Safina addresses the dangers of increasing acidity in the ocean caused by carbon dioxide. Hardt, a research scientist and writer, is the founder of Ocean Ink. Safina, an adjunct professor at Stony Brook University, is the founding president of the Blue Ocean Institute.

Over the past couple of years, no other issue has received more attention in the marine community than ocean acidification. Marine biologists have been constantly working towards solving this issue and are hoping to see improvement’s very soon. Ocean acidification refers to the relentless growth in acidity of the Earth’s oceans. This on-going acidity has attributed to an important element; a constant rise of carbon dioxide levels in the Earth. The number one reason this issue is still happening is because of burning fossil fuels. In addition to burning fossil fuels, it has come to a point where it has enlarged a large amount of carbon dioxide by releasing it into the atmosphere. Chemists have taken this issue into attention that carbon enters the ocean and combines with seawater to fallout acid, which boosts the level of acidity. This process is known as ocean acidification.

Sometimes called “climate change’s equivalently destructive twin”, ocean acidification is becoming more and more noticeable as the seawater’s changing chemistry begins to cause environmental and economical problems. When the Industrial Revolution began around 1760, fossil fuel–powered machines gained an immense amount of accessibility and popularity. Since then, carbon dioxide (CO2) levels in the atmosphere have risen enough to change the pH of the world’s oceans. Given that the ocean absorbs almost half of the CO2 that is released into our atmosphere, ocean acidification is inclining into an even greater problem as fossil fuels become a more common energy source in our society. Higher acid levels can harm wildlife, disrupt the food chain, and negatively impact industries that rely on the ocean for business. Ocean acidification is causing growing dilemmas for both marine ecosystems and ocean-based economies. Although many companies and organizations are attempting to fix this problem, acidification is still threatening to cause increasingly harmful issues for the future.

A bottle of soda is full of carbon dioxide. The bubbles stay stuck in the liquid until the bottle is opened. When you drop an item into a bottle of soda, bubbles form on the surface of the object that was dropped in. This Process is called, “nucleation.” Nucleation is the process that happens in the formation of a crystal from a solution, a liquid, or a vapour.

Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide is one of the primary sources used of carbon in life on Earth and its concentration in Earth's pre-industrial atmosphere. Plants, algae and Cyanobacteria are part of the carbon cycle that uses light energy. Co2 is produced by all aerobic organisms when they metabolize carbohydrates and lipids to produce energy by respiration. It is returned to water by the gills of fish and to the air by the lungs of land animals, including humans. Co2 is produced during the processes of decay of organic materials and the fermentation of the sugar in bread, beer and the making of wine. It is produced by combustion of wood, other organic materials and fossil fuels such as coal, peat, petroleum and natural

Since the industrial revolution, anthropogenic inputs of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere have increased dramatically. Concentrations in the atmosphere have risen 40% from 1750 to 2011, reaching record highs of 390.5 ppm (Stocker, et al., 2013). Due to this, the amount of dissolved CO2 in the oceans has also increased causing acidification of the oceans which can have several effects, mainly on calcifying organisms. Climate change has also influenced the stratification of the oceans due to density changing affecting nutrient distribution. So far, although a number of methods have been explored, there have been no solutions that don’t have their own issues.

The Effect of Temperature on the Solubility of Carbon Dioxide in Water under Constant Pressure